Ryan Giggs: Manchester City can't handle heat at the top

Manchester United's Ryan Giggs feels Manchester City may crack under the pressure

It’s tough when you are champions and have got to try and defend it

Ryan Giggs

Now the Manchester United veteran wants to do his neighbours a favour and dethrone them as the kings of English football.

United can take a giant step ­towards reclaiming the title with a win when the warring ­Manchester rivals clash at the ­Etihad Stadium tomorrow.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s men can open up a six-point lead at the top of the table and the pressure is on the Blues to respond following their diabolical Champions League exit this week.

It promises to be an explosive encounter and Giggs has fanned the flames after insisting the Blues are feeling the strain of being champions.

The critics have rounded on boss Roberto Mancini this week and accused him of losing the plot ­after his side finished rock bottom of Group D and bombed out of Europe altogether.

Despite being unbeaten in the league this season, City have failed to recapture their blistering domestic form of last year.

But Giggs has told the Blues it is tough at the top when people want to shoot you down.

He said: “We are all looking forward to it, obviously. It’s a massive game, the one you want to play in, and it’s nice that we go into it three points ahead.

“These games have got bigger and bigger. The build-up to the actual games have been really competitive, the games themselves have had a lot of quality and it just seems to get bigger and bigger.

“With City winning the league last season, it has added spice.

“I think teams raise themselves against us, because we are United, and City have found that a bit this season, because they are the champions and because of the money they’ve spent.

“With all the exposure and ­quality of players they’ve got, ­everyone wants to beat them. It’s tough when you are champions and have got to try and defend it.”

Welsman Giggs has more reason than most to want to knock them off their perch. He thought he had seen it all in his glittering career. That was until City pipped United to the title on goal difference in May thanks to Sergio Aguero’s last-gasp strike against QPR.

Giggs admits it was hard to take, adding: “It wasn’t nice being up at Sunderland not knowing what had happened, then finding out we had lost it because of the last game.

“It was very disappointing and it was even more disappointing because it was City.

“You see a lot more City shirts knocking about and you get the odd comment! But you’ve got to take it. We’ve won many league titles, so you’ve just got to take it.

“They finished top so deserved to win it. We’ve just got to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

“I don’t think you start the season thinking you are going to get so many points and not win the league. To lose it on goal difference is not nice. You look back during the summer at times when you could have got those goals back.

“It’s always the same when you don’t win the league, it makes it a long summer and you can’t wait for the new season to start, but we’ve been there before.”

Giggs has helped United see off challenges from Arsenal and Chelsea down the years, but can Fergie’s men can do the same with the Blues?

“Yes, we hope so,” said Giggs. “There’s a different aspect to it. You’re still disappointed if you lose to Chelsea or Arsenal, but this has a different dynamic because they are our local rivals.

“You’ve got to enjoy the challenge, whatever it is. We’ve had different challenges down the years, from Arsenal in the late 1990s. They were just a brilliant team and we had some great games.

“Then there was Chelsea with Jose Mourinho coming in. City are different again because it’s a derby and they are right on our doorstep, so there are different dimensions to whatever team we’ve come up against in the past.

“I don’t think anyone could foresee the money that was going to come into City and the players they have now got, not just the starting 11 but the whole squad, which you obviously need to compete.

“But it’s there, the challenge is there and we’ll look forward to dealing with it.”

Tomorrow’s clash will be Robin van Persie’s first taste of derby action in Manchester and Giggs reckons he is in a class of his own.

He added: “He has experience of the Premier League and it’s just his quality really. You can see that in his movement, finishing. He’s just that bit of class that is making the difference for us in games.

“Players like him, world-class players, can be the difference. City have them and we’ve got them. You’ve seen that in the past in tight games, that little bit of magic or class from a quality player can really make the difference.”